Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, over 10 times the diameter of Earth. It is made up primarily of hydrogen and helium and has a turbulent, colorful atmosphere with the Great Red Spot, a giant storm that has raged for over 300 years. Jupiter has over 60 moons, four of which - Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto - were discovered by Galileo and are some of the largest in the solar system.

2. Jupiter means:
Jupiter, known as Zeus in Greek mythology, over threw
his father Saturn to become king of the gods. He then split
the universe with his brothers Neptune and Pluto.

3. Facts about Planet Jupiter
* Diameter: 85,788 miles the largest planet - more than 12 Earths
could line up across it
* Temperature: Range -163° C to >-121° C
* Distance from Sun: Approximately 466 million miles
* Atmosphere: Mostly hydrogen and helium
* Surface: A giant ball of mostly hydrogen and helium
* Rotation of its axis: 9 hours, 55 minutes in Earth time (the length
of one rotation)
* Rotation around the Sun: 12 Earth years
* Magnetic Field: Yes
* Number of Moons: 63 moons have been identified Ganymede is
the largest moon - it is bigger than both Mercury and Pluto

4. Jupiter is the largest planet in our Solar
System. The Earth could fit inside Jupiter
more than 1000 times.

5. Jupiter is a very stormy planet.
There are storms found
throughout the atmosphere, and
most of the storms seem to never
end. The many different cloud
formations and storms in the
atmosphere also make Jupiter a
very colorful planet.

6. When viewed from Earth, Jupiter can reach an apparent magnitude of
−2.94, bright enough to cast shadows, and making it on average the
third-brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus. (Mars
can briefly match Jupiter's brightness at certain points in its orbit.)

7. Jupiter's mass is 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the
Solar System combined—this is so massive that its barycenter
with the Sun lies above the Sun's surface at 1.068 solar radii
from the Sun's center. Although this planet dwarfs the Earth
with a diameter 11 times as great, it is considerably less dense.
Jupiter's volume is that of about 1,321 Earths, yet the planet
is only 318 times as massive. Jupiter's radius is about 1/10
the radius of the Sun, and its mass is 0.001 times the mass of
the Sun, so the density of the two bodies is similar

8. Atmosphere
Jupiter is about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium (by numbers of atoms,
75/25% by mass) with traces of methane, water, ammonia and "rock".
This is very close to the composition of the primordial Solar Nebula from
which the entire solar system was formed. Saturn has a similar
composition, but Uranus and Neptune have much less hydrogen and
helium.

9. Jupiter's great red spot,
visible in the picture above
to the right, is where a giant
storm has been raging for at
least 300 years. This red spot
is also called "The Eye of
Jupiter" because of its
shape. This storm's super
hurricane winds blow across
an area larger than the
Earth.

10. Jupiter has 50 official
moons and 12 provisional
(unofficial) moons. The
four largest and most
well-known were
discovered by Galileo in
the year 1610. Their
names are Io, Europa,
Ganymede and Callisto.
Some of the other moons
are Adrastea, Ananke,
Carme, Elara, Himalia,
Leda, Lysithea, Metis,
Pasiphae, Sinope, and
Thebe.

11. Rings
Did you know Jupiter has rings? They are faint and
are only able to be viewed when Jupiter passes in
front of the Sun. This is because the light from the
Sun lights them up for us to see here on Earth. There
are three rings in all. They are named Gossamer,
Main and Halo.

12. Flights to Jupiter: The United States has sent six space probes to
Jupiter: (1) Pioneer 10 (December 1973) (2)Pioneer 11 (December
1974) (3) Voyager 1 (1979) (4) Voyager 2 (1979) (5) Ulysses (February
1992) and (6)Galileo.
In December 1995, NASA's Galileo spacecraft dropped a probe into
Jupiter's atmosphere, which collected the first direct measurements of
the atmosphere.
During the Jupiter leg of its journey, the spacecraft Voyager 2 was to
explore the giant planet, its magnetosphere and moons in greater
detail than had the Pioneer spacecraft that preceded it. Voyager 2 was
not only to study Jupiter, but to use it as a springboard to Saturn,
using the gravity-assist technique.

13. Magnetic Field
Jupiter has a huge magnetic field, much stronger than Earth's.
Its magnetosphere extends more than 650 million km (past the
orbit of Saturn!).
Gravity
Because of the giant size of Jupiter, the gravity there is 2.4 times
more than on Earth. If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you
would feel like you weighed 240 pounds on Jupiter.

14. Life
Amazing as it may seem scientists have speculated
that life on Jupiter is possible. This would occur
beneath the cloud cover where room temperature
conditions exist, these lifeforms would be airborne
although this theory is thought to be highly
speculative.